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Comments
Everyone's in Purgatory. There, discussion done.
Anonus: Watch Element Hunters. Then we can discuss the show, its great characters, its shifting focus away from teaching kids basic chemical reactions, and it's extraordinarily catchy theme song.
Remind me not to watch Element Hunters then, Glenn.
The forms in the Star Wars canon are pretty much 100% bullshit. They were allegedly written by a fencer, although I suspect they were actually written by someone who had taken a few fencing lessons and played a lot of video games. Most of the logic and principles of actual swordplay are absent, and most special techniques read like video game moves rather than acting in symbiosis with the principles of each art.
For instance, each lightsaber form brings with it arbitrary limitations. For instance, many detail only using particular kinds of strikes plus a few crazy inefficient special moves that are almost guaranteed to get you killed. To match a real person using a real sword art (assuming equivalent weapons on both sides), a Jedi would have to know every form and then remove the bits that are stupid. There are a lot of those.
There's also the fact that the lightsaber forms are categorised based on factors like "speed", "strength", "attack" and "defense", which are pure video game logic. All of those things are much more to do with the artist than the art. While real world martial styles do have their biases, their inherent aggression, defensiveness, speed or impact force has less to do with things like swing speed and more to do with a number of subtle factors that contribute towards it. One example might be the Liechtenauer tradition of medieval and Renaissance Germany; it's aggressive because it combines offensive and defensive techniques within a single movement, so it has no need for dedicated defensive techniques, making it an aggressive art that places constant pressure on an adversary, preventing them from countering. Yet this aggression is technical, as the techniques are best employed from a position of emotional neutrality.
On the other hand, the English tradition is much more defensive. It still doesn't include many particular parrying techniques, but it uses the concept of the "Twofold Mind" -- one wherein attacking and defending happen in unison, which is in principle identical to the Liechtenauer style but employed differently. In this case, rather than using your sword as a barrier during the attack, you step in and out of range according to what opportunities you can create or those that present themselves. So while the English and German schools of swordsmanship are similar in principle, they vary by the execution of said principles; the German school overwhelms with aggression that carries its down defense while the English school measures distance to defend itself and attacks from a position of safety.
And all this is perfectly plausible with a lightsaber in hand, too. While I can forgive ignorance on swordplay from moviemakers, game designers and others who create this kind of stuff, swallowing the bullshit replacing swordplay is difficult, and it's not at all helped by how sacred the Star Wars fanbase seems to take this expanded universe stuff. Besides, emotionless efficiency suits the Jedi much better than foolish spectacle.
Logistics nothing, this is biomechanics and technique. A lightsaber bears enough resemblance to existing weapons that we can make a strong basis of comparison. Its blade might be made of energy, but aside from that, it's a hiltless two-handed sword.
Lightsaber is, for purposes of biomechanics, just the handle, The rest is kinda weightless.
You put the point of balance at the top of the handle and the main grip piece under it a good few inches. Since the steel beyond the point of balance is more or less weightless once you have the fulcrum motion going anyway, it wouldn't make a huge amount of difference.
Not really, since all close combat weapons are bound by the same principles. Most sword techniques place emphasis on speed over impact force anyway, given that human flesh gives almost no resistance against a bladed object in motion.
Which makes one hell of a lot of difference insofar as using a lightsaber as a tool goes and a very minute difference insofar as using as a weapon goes. Standard sword techniques weren't applicable against heavy armours anyway, so they'd generally be used against things they could easily cut through -- such as leather and flesh. You could argue that you could put less strength into lightsaber attacks, but power and speed go hand-in-hand, so you'd be using the same amount of bodily energy to attack anyway.
The biggest difference would simply be that defensive measures that would stop a sword wouldn't stop a lightsaber.
At least one form of lightsaber combat is specifically based upon the fact it's a) weightless, and b) even a slightest touch is gonna hurt.
You know what, I don't think I ever took a part in any conversation so excessively nerdy.
It's not Form One (Shii-Cho), Form Two (Makashi) (This one almost seems like it would fit, as fluidity and economy of motion, rather than brute force, was relied upon, but it doesn't rely upon a single cut causing significant damage anyway), Form Three (Soresu), Form Four (Ataru), Form Five (Shien or Djem So), Form Six (Niman), or Form Seven (Juuyo), so... It's not one of the seven Jedi Forms.
Also, it amuses me how so many of those Forms were developed because people thought "Oh holy shit, you know what? We developed this totally awesome fighting style that is like, the best thing ever against people with swords, but we completely forgot that people have guns :c We need to make new forms that don't suck against guns!"
Hurt, perhaps, but it's also going to cauterise the wound. So the bleeding effect you'd get from a standard bladed weapon isn't present, necessitating in fact larger cuts in order to hit vitals or cause disabling wounds.
There's that one guy in A New Hope, but that's his fault for being a life form with hollow arms or whatever.
Makashi is actually a brilliant example of how poorly the lightsaber forms were done, because it expresses a lot of ignorance concerning swordplay, uses a lot of video game logic and makes implications about other forms.
For instance, if economy, speed and fluidity are focuses, why doesn't it rely upon a single cut causing significant damage? Speed generates force, and the purpose of economy is to create artificial speed, too. Furthermore, fluidity in swordplay is about keeping the flow of kinetic energy going, allowing speed (and therefore power) to stay maxed out at the smallest energy cost to the combatant. If I recall, it's a one-handed form, which would actually detract from its speed and efficiency. In fact, fluidity is generally a trait of one-handed styles because they lack the control and efficiency of two-handed styles. No matter how you look at it, Makashi is self-defeating.
And then the implication is that it's a heavily efficient style compared to the other forms. Given that Makashi has so many holes in it, how much worse are the other styles?
The forms are fun diversions, but break down as soon as anyone tries to apply any kind of martial logic to them.
I'm pretty sure the logic behind it is that lightsaber combat, or at least the seven Forms that the Jedi utilize, aren't actually designed to kill. That's why Soresu is so widely celebrated.
Oh, this is something that is only really relevant to Alex, too.
So I was going through the stacks out the back of the library with Beth today (my supervisor). And I happened upon... the old book section, dundundun.
So, naturally, I was intrigued and inquired further. And, as it turns out, we do, indeed, have grimoires, where previously I had only had an 'I think so' from Maria.
I asked Beth if I could read them at night with a candle one day, and she told me that she didn't have a problem with that, although if I burned one of them, they'd cost hundreds to thousands to cover the value of the books~
Are we arguing about this again? Aren't there more important things to nitpick about, like the Prequels's plotholes and failure to tell a decent story?
Fuck yeah grimoires. <3
Well, that's a break in martial (weapons) logic, too. If a situation has become hostile enough to justify the use of weapons, then it's hostile enough to justify killing another person. The essential logic is that if you bring out something deadly, you should be prepared to have a similar object or weapon used against yourself. Besides, Star Wars itself contradicts this because of all the mook deaths.
^ Not to me. ._.
Lightsabers > storytelling elements. Sorry, but given a choice, I would always talk about lightsabers over bad movies.
Many of the forms can kill. They're just not designed to, because peace and love and harmony and tolerance and laser swords that can cut through giant elephant droids and do weird loop-the-loops in midair because force telekinesis and make a bjew sound and have cool colours
Star Wars does that a lot. The heroes have a pretty high kill count when you consider the fact that they're like, pacifist warrior monks.
To be honest there's not much to say on Lightsabers or bad Star Wars movies.
Well I guess I was just proven wrong in terms of the first one but to clarify, I meant simply that most people don't care. They only care for the fact that they are swords. Made of light.
that shit's awesome yo
also i'm apparently a published writer and i have been offered to work both on a tv show and a radio show as a film person thing. when did all of that happen .__.
yeah, well
shut up :<
But yeah, most people don't give a shit if it doesn't make sense. I mean, the lightsabers look really cool, and they're laser swords that shoot back laser bullets and make cool sounds. You don't really need to expend a significant amount of effort making sure that the fighting styles actually make sense (or exist) when that's your basis.
With that said, some fights could have used much better coreography.
Namely Obi-Wan vs Darth Vader.
holy shit i don't fence but there are like a million openings and Vader just goes "Oh you're gonna turn and attack me? That's fine. Take your time!"
This is where I say something along the lines of 'I only vaguely remember watching the movies from when I was seven and my cousin brought them over to my grandmother's and I just remember giant elephants and a ship floating out of a swamp and lightsabers'.
Hooray for EU.
man
let's just
watch Ep. 4
a million times
glorious han solo being awesome action
That is pretty sweet. Good luck.
Wanna know the kicker? The original films were choreographed by the late Bob Anderson, who also did Vader's part in the duels on screen in the latter two films. Bob Anderson was a former Olympic fencer, and he combined European sport fencing and kendo to produce the lightsaber duels. It gets better, because that combination essentially produces German longsword with its teeth removed, meaning that the originals (for all their swordy faults, and Obi-Wan's fight) were actually several degrees more accurate than most films when it comes to swordplay.
There's this one bit in Attack of the Clones, right? Anakin and Dooku are going at it with lightsabers and Dooku cuts off Anakin's hand. Except he takes absolutely ages to do it while Anakin stands there like a silly billy and pretty much allows his own hand to be cut off.
I do have them downloaded, I just need to work up the motivation to watch them.
It sounds silly, but I hate watching things with dated graphics. Things like old Kamen Rider shows, the early seasons of Buffy, Star Trek, and the Star Wars, kinda make me cringe whenever anything actually happens because it's so obviously fake.
While I agree with you that lightsaber combat isn't very realistic, even if I prefer it with you, I honestly don't think that combat with actual lightsabers would... resemble mass-based sword combat at all.
I mean, besides the fact that it has a laser blade, which cauterizes wounds and weighs nothing, the only people who can use lightsabers are Force-sensitives, who kind of boost themselves with the Force.
wait what
Well, I can't say I've read about it myself, but the Star Wars wiki says-
Which also means it's not a laser sword. >:C
Although Greivous did wield lightsabers, so it's not a hard-and-fast rule.
This talks about it, really.
The old Star Wars films, at least to me, look more real than the newer ones. They're full of practical effects rather than CGI, so everything has weight and mass.
The hilts have mass and can provide weapons-compatible balance. And like I've said before, many swords use a weight/counterweight system between the pommel and point of balance which effectively renders much of the sword weightless while it's in motion.
There are also swords which provide the illusion of weightlessness because of their balance -- essentially, the above weight/counterweight principle taken to perfection. Many swords, in fact, are lighter than the bone and muscle mass that has to be moved in order to power them in the first place. Especially two-handed ones, where the sword's weight is halved for all practical intentions and purposes.
Hell, you can fight with a light staff almost exactly as you fight with a longsword, and I suspect light staves are less weighty than a lightsaber hilt. The thing is that most weapons operate on the same principles, and separating lengthy, straight weapons from one-another is often like splitting hairs. For most intents and purposes, lightsaber combat would be identical to Kunst des Fechtens, kenjutsu, mao dao or any art you care to name that uses a two-handed sword as a primary weapon.
Sorry to interrupt your Star Wars talk, which is all well and good, but there is a blimp bearing the logo of Hood milk making its way over Connecticut.
You need to know this.
We don't see blimps very often here.